Not enough points/miles/minutes!

[unbibium]

I've noticed a lot of ads on TV that fit this motif:

Some guy is trying to enjoy some kind of super-cheap version of some kind of minor luxury.  There's the guy trying to take his family on vacation by jumping boxcars with hoboes, there's the guy trying to go bicycling in a forest without a bike, and there's the guy who told the kids their grandparents were dead so they don't use as many cell phone minutes.

As you can tell, the problem isn't that they don't have enough money.  It's because corporate America has frowned upon them and given them coupons with too many restrictions.  The family guy can't go on good vacations because his credit card miles have blackout dates.  The bicycling guy doesn't have a bike because he didn't rack up reward points fast enough.  And the family with the secret grandparents have never heard of mail of any kind, obviously.

Would this behavior be considered pathetic in the real world?  Or am I just not as coupon-crazy as I should be?

Comments

[brokenallbroken.livejournal.com]

I see it as an extension of the "stupid ugly husband has a brilliant attractive wife" sitcom premise. The only thing I hate worse than that trope is how it's become so common.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

Right, it's always a guy. I hesitated to mention it because of my Conservation of Gender Bullshit theory; there's probably a set of ads that is just as offensive to women but I don't notice them because I aren't one. I have noticed that for every woman in an ad who gets hypnotized by a diamond, there's a guy in an ad who gets hypnotized by a cell phone that picks up movie trailers.

[vyus.livejournal.com]

it sucks, but if you're not using coupons and getting free shit with your credit cards, then you are losing out. it's not a good reason to buy more stuff, but it is built into the prices of everything.

proctor and gamble and some retail outfit once experimented by lowering prices, eliminating seasonal sales and eliminating coupons entirely in a market area (i think it was new york?). the response was overwhelmingly negative as people went for other products and stores.

[piehead.livejournal.com]

So true.
We have an Amazon Visa card, so for every whatever we spend we get a $25 Amazon gift certificate in the mail.

We generally put everything on a card anyway (groceries, for instance) and pay it off every month, so hey, "free" gift certificates.

I suppose that since you get "double points" for buying on Amazon, there have been CDs I bought on Amazon instead of somewhere else, but free shipping helps.

[pentomino.livejournal.com]

well, I don't have a credit card. I have a debit card, so whenever I spend money, it's money I already have.

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

If you're responsible and pay the balance every month, they're the same thing, except you sign for the credit card and type a PIN for the debit, if even that.

cultural divide

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

The getting-free-shit people and the just-buy-it people seem to see each other's behavior as mutually pathetic, one group wasting money, the other wasting time that's worth more money than they save. Meanwhile, my getting-free-shit sister and my just-buy-it wife see me as the most pathetic of all, wasting time comparison shopping and missing the coupon and sale bargains while I waffle over whether to buy anything at all.